Transparency
by Madam Suzie
Summary: Rather dark. Hermione is taken, and meets her potions professor while in captivity after he is discovered as a spy. Together they face the coming war, and find a way to live through the aftermath. Possible SSHG, can't tell at this stage.
1. The Room

In a dark, unused room sat a girl. She was hugging herself, trying to keep warm in the dank corner she had sought shelter in. So far her efforts were proving futile.

The girl's name was Hermione Granger, and she was being held against her will, simply because her parents were muggles. She had been here, as far as she could tell, for about 2 days. There was no way to be sure because the room was in a perpetual state of darkness, punctuated only by the coming and going of her captors through the room's single door, every few hours, to beat her.

Hermione shivered, trying to keep the warmth flowing through her body. 'For what reason?' she thought to herself. 'At least if I'm numb I won't feel it when they hit me'. She shivered again, trying to steer herself away from such thoughts. Instead she thought back to the day she had been captured, and the events that followed:

Flashback

Hermione sat on the park bench, breathing in the fresh air. It had been days since she had been outside, having already started studying for her upcoming NEWTs during her seventh and final year at Hogwarts. She took a deep breath and smiled slightly to herself, thinking of the way the Order was progressing in the fight against Voldemort. The war in itself was nothing to smile about, but any break the order got was occasion for celebration.

"Lovely day, isn't it?" said a cold and, very unfortunately, familiar voice.

Hermione whipped around, her eyes focusing on a man in his late forties, with sleek, almost colorless, light blond hair. There was no need to question the man's identity. He was currently fixing her with a stare she didn't like one bit, and she resolved to get away as soon as possible. Lucius Malfoy wasn't a man renowned for his afternoon chats.

"Mr. Malfoy, what a surprise! Now if you'll excuse me, I have studying to do, so I'll just be--"

"I'm afraid not, my _dear_," Malfoy cut her off. "You see," he continued, with a smirk on his thin lips, "my master has requested your presence, and he's not the type to take 'no' for an answer."

Hermione reached for her wand, but a muttered disarming spell from Malfoy had it in his hand before she could even open her mouth to curse him. He laughed.

"You see," he said again, "the Dark Lord has heard of your contributions to your _pathetic_ cause," he spat out, "and has decided that he couldn't afford to keep you—ahem, shall we say—at large." Hermione couldn't believe her ears. "I have come to retrieve you and make sure you don't do anything else to foil our plans."

Hermione began to slowly shake her head, willing herself to wake from this terrible nightmare. 'This couldn't be happening,' she thought. 'Not to me.'

As much as she hated to admit it, she really could not believe that this was happening to her: this was the sort of tragic thing you read about in the back of the Daily Prophet over a heaping plate of eggs, then forgot about seconds later as you finish your meal and start your day. This didn't happen to real people. It was so much easier to think of the war that way: unimaginable things happening to unimaginable, faceless people miles away. Something about it happening to _her _made Hermione realize how real everything was. It was not a welcome epiphany.

Sometime during Hermione's internal discovery, Malfoy had advanced on her. She blinked in surprise; she had not noticed him coming toward her. 'Please let someone come,' she thought desperately as Malfoy raised his wand, knowing full well that nobody would, that Malfoy had probably taken care of that, and that if anybody did it would be a muggle and would be of no help to her.

As if in slow motion, Hermione heard the words coming from Malfoy's mouth, and everything went black.

She awoke later in the dank room, surprised to be alive. Not so surprising was the sense of dread of what was to come, suspecting that the only reason she was still alive was because they wanted to torture her, and_ then_ kill her.

'Wow, I love it when I think cheerful thoughts' she thought sarcastically.

And so the hours passed, with "visitors" every so often. That part wasn't as bad as one might think. What really got to her was the wait. The not knowing how long she was to be left alive, and _why_ she was still alive in the first place. So she waited.

Present

Hermione shivered yet again, and immediately cursed herself for doing so. All this shivering was annoying her.

"Great," she muttered out loud, "Now I'm losing my mind. Maybe that's what they wanted? For me to go hopelessly insane, then throw me back to Order to feed bullshit plans to them. Maybe--"

She never got to finish her thought because just then the door opened, and instead of another "visitor", as she had come to call them, a body was thrown in. It groaned.

Hermione moved closer to see if she could help in any way, not that it was likely, but company was always good when you were lying on a cold floor bleeding to death.

At that moment, the body had decided to turn over, and his face came to rest in what little light there was in the room, revealing his identity. Hermione gasped.

"Professor Snape?"

* * *

A/N: There it is! My first "serious" story. Review if you like, review if you don't, with any comments or suggestions. Constructive criticism welcome. I thinkthis thing might be going in the HG/SS direction, but I'm not sure. I'm rather fond of that pairing: it's the whole "hot for teacher" thing. Ugh, need a pudding reload...

Another side note: according to JKR, Hermione's almost a year older than her peers. Because her birthday's in September, she was still ten, but almosteleven,when the letters were sent out for the year before her. You have to be at least 11 to get the letter, so she was almost 12 when she started at Hogwarts. She turned 12eighteen days into school. In my story, I'm adding her use of the Time Turner to her age, so I've made her about 18 years old when she starts her seventh year.


	2. Castles Made of Sand

Getting fired...

* * *

"Yes, my lord," Severus choked from his place on the ground. He could barely think, let alone answer the dark lord's questions. _How_ had Malfoy seen him?

"Crucio!"

All thoughts of his discovery were put on hold as a new wave of pain washed over him. His last coherent thought before he fell unconscious was of that little girl, and whether she made it away safely.

Several hours earlier…

Severus walked briskly up to the house, feeling almost nervous. Voldemort never sent him on actual raids, only used his position as "loyal spy" on Dumbledore. But this time he insisted. Severus knew something was wrong but couldn't refuse lest he cast even more suspicion on himself.

"Feeling nervous?" asked a sneering voice beside him. Lucius Malfoy could make even the most innocuous phrase sound vindictive.

"Why should I be? Our Lord wants me here, so here I am. I have no reason to be nervous." Severus replied, with equal venom.

Lucius just raised a pale eyebrow and turned to a smaller figure on his other side.

"So what are we expecting?"

"Two muggles, married."

"No children?"

"There was a little girl, but we've been informed she made an unexpected trip, so she won't be in for the show," the smaller man replied.

Severus breathed an inward sigh of relief. At least she wouldn't be witness to her parents' murders.

They continued in silence up the walkway to the brightly painted door, which Lucius opened silently, and walked inside.

It was a quick affair, Lucius being the main character, making his superiority speech, then torturing and killing the audience. All the other Death Eaters had to do was stand behind him looking intimidating or look around the rest of the house. Still intimidating, of course.

Severus chose to wander around the other rooms rather than listen to Lucius acting superior. Most of the house was very plain and unremarkable; there was nothing suspicious anywhere. There wasnothing to even suggest why this particular household was chosen for attack, not that he expected there to be.

When he stepped into the kitchen, however, he thought he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. Pretending not to notice, he waited until he saw where the motion came from. Bending down to look under the table he saw a little girl, about ten years old, with dark red hair and blue eyes, hiding. She looked at him with fear and a little defiance. He instantly liked her.

"Come with me. I'll get you out," Severus whispered to her.

"No!" she whispered, tears in her eyes.

"Listen," Severus whispered urgently, "they've killed your parents. You need to come with me if you plan on living any longer than the next few minutes." He was starting to get annoyed and remembered why he hated teaching so much.

"No, you'll just take me to them!" she said, almost a bit too loudly, attempting to crawl away.

Thinking quickly, Severus grabbed her arm and hauled her out from under to the table and made for the back door. She squirmed, but he kept an iron grip on her and dragged her outside.

"Quick, they don't know you're here. Run!" Severus whispered, while trying to stay out of view from the windows.

"Why should I trust you? You're one of them." She looked distrusting, but a little hopeful.

He looked her straight in the eye. "Because you're not dead yet. Run."

She got the point and made her way around the side of the house. He watched her until she was completely out of sight, then snuck back into the kitchen and waited. A few minutes later he walked into the room as if nothing had happened and waited for Lucius to speak.

"Our master wants us to meet with him immediately," he said, somewhat smugly.

They walked outside again, and the small Death Eater (what was his name again?) cast the Dark Mark into the sky above the house. Right before they all apparated to the scheduled meeting point, Severus saw Lucius look at him in the rather unsettling I-know-something-you-don't-know way, but everything was soon a blur, and Severus soon had other matters in mind.

In retrospect, Severus should have known he was taking too big of a risk by helping that little girl; he should have known he would be seen. In retrospect, Severus should have apparated straight to Hogwarts and told Dumbledore his cover was blown, but at that moment he didn't know he was caught in the middle of the biggest catch-22 of all time. All he knew was that the Dark Lord wanted to see him.

They apparated into the middle of a rather large circle of Death Eaters. Lucius and the smaller man immediately melted into the circle, but when Severus moved to take his place, a high cold voice spoke.

"Not you, Severus. You stay right there."

In the next few minutes it was revealed that Lucius had indeed seen Severus warn the girl. In fact, the whole deal with the girl not being at home had been a test. Lord Voldemort had already had his suspicions about Severus Snape, and this was just his way of finding out the truth. Had Severus brought the girl to Lucius without hesitation, he would have been "cleared", in a sense, of all suspicion. But Severus did not, so he was branded traitor, and treated accordingly.

Present…

Severus groaned. He knew exactly where he was: in one of the many "guest rooms" at the remote mansion Voldemort had adopted as "home". The house used to belong to his father's rich family and Voldemort had used it as a hideout during the year before his rebirth. It was only natural that he pay the old place a visit. In fact it was an ideal location, as it was ignored and avoided by the muggle villagers below, who would rather wonder about their own social dilemmas than the fact that the old Riddle house had lights in the windows again.

Severus rolled to lie on his back and prepared to fall deep into unconsciousness when he heard a strangely familiar voice hoarsely whisper:

"Professor Snape?"

* * *

A/N: Chapter 2! Yeehaw! Any comments, suggestions, or random thoughts,you can leave a review or email me. I believeit is listed on my profile page. 


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